Archive for the ‘midtown brews’ tag

I just received an email from our friend Bill McDermott. If you have attended one of the Midtown Brews events, you probably have had the pleasure of making Bill’s acquaintance. A chemist by trade, he is extremely knowledgeable about alternative energy especially, solar and shares his research freely with the Brews crowd and at RealNeo where he has a blog. He reads extensively and freely shares what he learns with the rest of us. In essence, he is my newspaper clipper on all things green.

The email was to promote the upcoming Ohio Solar Energy Tour coming our way this October. Here are the specifics for the Northeast Ohio Solar Energy Tour. Notice that Bills’ house is one of the featured sites. His wife and he are also hosting an all day Open house during the tour. Note that the Kious Straw House is also on the tour. Next year will probably feature the Shaker Lakes straw structure.

I noticed that there is a combined Wayne/Holmes Tour scheduled for that weekend. Since those are my old stomping grounds, I must check out the particulars for that tour as well. I grew up outside the quaint village of Shreve located in Wayne County but as close to the border as possible. County Road 1 was the delineation between the two counties.

Who says exciting things aren’t happening in NEO and Ohio? I beg to differ.

I just posted this over at Midtown Brews. I think the topic, the speaker, and the opportunities at this event are so important and timely that I have decided to post this everywhere.

“Give me land lots of land, lots of land under starry skies above. Don’t Fence Me In”, the Cole Porter song sung by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters as well as a host of others.On the other hand, Will Rogers said “buy land, they aren’t making any more of it”.

Our topic for the June 5th Brews is LAND.County Treasurer Jim Rokakis will lead our discussion of the proposed land bank legislation that Ohio will tackle in November.The passage of this legislation is only the beginning of what will be a transformative change in our region and Ohio.How the land bank advisory board, the disposition of properties, and the decision-making process for local communities are shaped provides a huge opportunity to “get it right”.

Civic engagement and the public process will be critical elements of a “land bank” that will be a deciding factor in a new form of economic development.How can the land bank be used to draw new businesses to our region?How will it retain the businesses we now have?How could it be used to draw in a skilled workforce?Which communities will find new ways to use this tool to enhance the attractiveness of the live, work and play potential inherent in that community?What is the potential to use the land bank to strategically plan for shrinking our footprint?How will we balance quantity with quality?

This brews has the potential to give us an opportunity to start the conversation to begin thinking in new ways and bringing together the best practices of Open Source Economic Development.